How wonderful it is to be nearing the 7th anniversary of Sumo Fan Magazine. That’s quite a significant milestone, especially when you consider most yokozuna – and even most ozeki – don’t last that long! We have even lasted longer than Kotooshu has spent at ozeki up to now, and he seems to have been there forever!

Anyway, we thought we were going to get a new yokozuna in March. Then we thought we were going to get a new yusho winner. Did we get either? Read the basho review to find out, and then read Alex Herrmann’s Ones to Watch for clues as to future stars. Check out Araibira’s top three videos for classic March Basho highlights, and also digest our look at the Yokozuna Deliberation Council’s controversial comments on Hakuho. And support JVB and Dorian Marcellin in their attempts to make sumo more popular and well-known around the world.

The magazine in general is much more streamlined this time, as we go for shorter, punchier articles that are designed to inform the reader without taking up too much of your time. Hey, Twitter is building sumo coverage around 140-word tweets which hold people’s attention more than long texts ever can. So we have a number of mini reports, trying to cover sumo from as many angles as possible.

Thanks as ever to morph-master Olivia, Denis, Eduardo and Alex for their layout and translation expertise, without which SFM would be… er…